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Jefferson Davis
Jefferson F. Davis (June 3, 1807/1808 – December 6, 1889) was an American soldier and politician, and was the President of the Confederate States of America (the former seceded southern states of the United States of America) during the American Civil War, 1861 to 1865. He took personal charge of the Confederate war plans but was unable to find a strategy to defeat the more populous and industrialized Union. His diplomatic efforts failed to gain recognition from any foreign country. At home he paid little attention to the collapsing Confederate economy; the government printed more and more paper money to cover the war's expenses, leading to runaway inflation and devaluation of the Confederate Dollar. Davis was born in Kentucky to a moderately prosperous farmer and grew up on his brother's large cotton plantations in Mississippi and Louisiana. His brother Joseph secured his appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point; after he graduated he served six years as a lieutenant in the United States Army. He fought in the first Mexican–American War (1846-1848), as the colonel of a volunteer regiment. He served as the U.S. Secretary of War, 1853 to 1857, under Democratic 14th President Franklin Pierce, (1804-1869), (and as a Democratic U.S. senator from Mississippi. An operator of a large cotton plantation in Mississippi with over 100 slaves, he was well known for his support of slavery in the Senate. He argued against secession, but did agree that each state was sovereign and had an unquestionable right to secede from the Union. Davis lost his first wife, Sarah Knox Taylor, to malaria after three months of marriage, and the disease almost killed him as well. He suffered from ill health for much of his life. He had six children with his second younger wife, Varina Howell Davis, but only two survived him. Many historians attribute the Confederacy's weaknesses to the leadership of President Davis.His preoccupation with detail, reluctance to delegate responsibility, lack of popular appeal, feuds with powerful state governors, favoritism toward old friends, inability to get along with people who disagreed with him, neglect of civil matters in favor of military ones, and resistance to public opinion all worked against him.Historians agree he was a much less effective war leader than his Union counterpart Abraham Lincoln. After Davis was captured in 1865, he was accused of treason but was not tried and was released after two years. While not disgraced, Davis had been displaced in ex-Confederate affection after the war by his leading general, Robert E. Lee. Davis wrote a memoir entitled The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, which he completed in 1881. By the late 1880s, he began to encourage reconciliation, telling Southerners to be loyal to the Union. Ex-Confederates came to appreciate his role as a Southern patriot and he became a hero of the Lost Cause in the New South. Biography Davis' paternal grandparents, though they had not yet met, immigrated to North America from the region of Snowdonia in North Wales in the early 1700s; the rest of his ancestry can be traced to England and Scotland. After arriving in Philadelphia, Davis' paternal grandfather Evan settled in Georgia and married Lydia Emory Williams, who had two sons from a previous marriage. Samuel Emory Davis was born to them in 1756. He served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, along with his two older half-brothers. In 1783, after the war, he married Jane Cook; she was born in 1759 to William Cook and his wife Sarah Simpson in what is now Christian County, Kentucky. In 1793 the family relocated to Kentucky, establishing what is now the community of Fairview on the border of Christian and Todd counties. Samuel and Jane had ten children; Jefferson was the last and was born on June 3, 1807 or 1808, on the Davis homestead in Fairview. The year of his birth is uncertain; for many years Davis gave 1807, but he later settled upon 1808, then late in life switched back.Samuel had been a young man when Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Jefferson was the third President of the United States, and Samuel, admiring him greatly, named his last son after the president. Abraham Lincoln was born a year or two later, less than 100 miles (160 km) to the northeast in Hodgenville, Kentucky. In the early 1900s, the Jefferson Davis State Historic Site was created near the site of Davis' birth. During Davis' youth, his family moved twice: in 1811 to St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, and less than a year later to Wilkinson County, Mississippi. Three of Jefferson's older brothers served in the War of 1812. In 1813, Davis began his education at the Wilkinson Academy in the small town of Woodville, near the family cotton plantation. Two years later, Davis entered the Catholic school of Saint Thomas at St. Rose Priory, a school operated by the Dominican Order in Washington County, Kentucky. At the time, he was the only Protestant student at the school. Davis returned to Mississippi, studying at Jefferson College at Washington in 1818. Three years later in 1821, he returned to Kentucky, where he studied at Transylvania University in Lexington. (At the time, these colleges were like academies, roughly equivalent to high schools.) His father Samuel died on July 4, 1824, when Jefferson was 16 years old. Davis attended the United States Military Academy (West Point) starting in late 1824.While there, he was placed under house arrest for his role in the Eggnog Riot during Christmas 1826. Whiskey was smuggled into the academy for the purpose of making eggnog, and more than one-third of the cadets were involved. In June 1828 he graduated 23rd in a class of 33. Following graduation, Second Lieutenant Davis was assigned to the 1st Infantry Regiment and was stationed at Fort Crawford, Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin Territory. Zachary Taylor, a future president of the United States, had recently assumed command before Davis arrived in early 1829. In March 1832, Davis returned to Mississippi on furlough, having had no leave since he first arrived at Fort Crawford. He was still in Mississippi during the Black Hawk War but returned to the fort in August. At the conclusion of the war, Colonel Taylor assigned him to escort Black Hawk to prison. Davis made an effort to shield Black Hawk from curiosity seekers, and the chief noted in his autobiography that Davis treated him "with much kindness" and showed empathy for the leader's situation as a prisoner. 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